Politics & Society: US Politics

Editorials & Actions

Understanding Mali

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | February 7, 2013

The Mali Blowback: More to Come? By Stephen Zunes, February 1, 2013

The French-led military offensive in its former colony of Mali has pushed back radical Islamists and allied militias from some of the country’s northern cities, freeing the local population from repressive Taliban-style totalitarian rule. The United States has backed the French military effort by transporting French troops and equipment and providing reconnaissance through its satellites and drones. However, despite these initial victories, it raises concerns as to what unforeseen consequences may lay down the road. Indeed, it was such Western intervention—also ostensibly on humanitarian grounds—that was largely responsible for the Malian crisis in the first place.

Editorials & Actions

Amira Hass says: “Palestinian Ghettos Were Always the Plan”

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | January 20, 2013

It’s worth reading Amira Hass’s latest Haaretz article on right-wing politician Naftali Bennet’s plan annex Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank. She writes:
When Habayit Hayehudi party leader and rising political star Naftali Bennett calls for annexing Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli security and civil control, he is following the logic of every single Israeli government: maximize the territory, minimize the Arabs. Some may even interpret this as elections propaganda in favor of Habayit Hayehudi and endorse it warmly. Bennett can propose annexation because every governing coalition since the Six-Day War — whether it was led by the Likud or Labor (or its precursor, Alignment) party, and whether its partners were Mafdal, Shas or Meretz — laid the spiritual and policy groundwork for him. According to Bennett, about 60 percent of the West Bank – a.k.a. Area C – is annexable.

Editorials & Actions

How to Create a Tikkun/NSP Network of Spiritual Progressives Presence in Your Town

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | January 18, 2013

Our goal: A change in consciousness. Creating a Tikkun/NSP Presence in your community means spreading these ideas. Nothing will change in our world till we have popularized the following notions of Tikkun/NSP:

1. Our well-being depends upon the well-being of everyone else on the planet and the well-being of the planet itself. So our goal is to create The Caring Society—Caring for Each Other and Caring for the Earth.

Editorials & Actions

“Failure of Epic Proportions: Obama’s TreasuryNominee Jack Lew and his Pro-Bank, Austerity, Deregulation Legacy

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | January 13, 2013

“Failure of Epic Proportions”: Treasury Nominee Jack
Lew’s Pro-Bank, Austerity, Deregulation Legacy
A transcript of Juan Gonzalez & Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now for January 11, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/11/failure_of_epic_proportions_treasury_nominee

Former bank regulator William Black and Rolling Stone’s
Matt Taibbi join us to dissect the career of Jack Lew,
President Obama’s pick to replace Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geither. Currently Obama’s chief of staff, Lew
was an executive at Citigroup from 2006 to 2008 at the
time of the financial crisis. He backed financial
deregulation efforts while he headed the Office of
Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton. During that time, Clinton enacted two key laws to
deregulate Wall Street: the Financial Services
Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures
Modernization Act of 2000. Black, a white-collar
criminologist and former senior financial regulator, is
the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own
One.”

Editorials & Actions

Michael Moore on US Violence and Christmas in America

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | December 24, 2012

FOCUS: Celebrating the Prince of Peace in the Land of Guns
By Michael Moore, Open Mike Blog

24 December 12

 

fter watching the deranged, delusional National Rifle Association press conference on Friday, it was clear that the Mayan prophecy had come true. Except the only world that was ending was the NRA’s. Their bullying power to set gun policy in this country is over. The nation is repulsed by the massacre in Connecticut, and the signs are everywhere: a basketball coach at a post-game press conference; the Republican Joe Scarborough; a pawn shop owner in Florida; a gun buy-back program in New Jersey; a singing contest show on TV, and the conservative gun-owning judge who sentenced Jared Loughner. So here’s my little bit of holiday cheer for you:

These gun massacres aren’t going to end any time soon.

Editorials & Actions

A World Based on Generosity

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | December 19, 2012

http://www.moonmagazine.org/rabbi-michael-lerner-a-world-based-on-generosity-2012-12-09/
Rabbi Michael Lerner | A world based on generosity
in Interview

Rabbi Michael Lerner

“If you don’t create a world based on loving your neighbor, loving the stranger, and pursuing justice and peace, the world won’t work. There will be an environmental crisis; the rain won’t fall, the sun won’t shine, the earth won’t yield produce, and humans and animals will be in great trouble. Built into the structure of the universe is the necessity of caring for each other and treating each other with kindness and generosity. In the final analysis, self-interest and serving God go hand-in-hand.”

By Mark Leviton

Leviton:  What’s your assessment of the health of our country at this point in time? Rabbi Lerner:  We still see humanity caught in a struggle between two worldviews.  One tells us we are thrown into this world alone and surrounded by hostile forces that seek to dominate and control us.

Editorials & Actions

This Crescendoing Celebration of Violence–Inciting Violence and Violent Minds by Investing in Violence and Violent Minds – Does Peace Stand a Chance? Thoughts and Analysis in the Wake of the Election.

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | December 16, 2012

Phil Wolfson MD
December 2012

This Crescendoing Celebration of Violence–Inciting Violence and Violent Minds by Investing in Violence and Violent Minds—Does Peace Stand a Chance? Thoughts and Analysis in the Wake of the Election. I am crying today—as are so many of my friends and the others whose laments and outrage I have been reading.  There is a great tear in my heart.  I have lost a child, my oldest son, to an intractable leukemia at almost 17 years of age.  I know the terrible grief of losing a child.  I know the extraordinary medical effort that goes into saving a child’s life, many children’s lives.  Then there is this slaughter, one of so many, all unacceptable, in which children in schools are targeted by deranged humans with access to weapons of the most terrifying power.  In this case these weapons were—apparently– obtained from his mother’s collection, who trained him—apparently—in firing them—making him a good shot–no doubt for fun—perhaps–who knows her mind—it is inconceivable that she foresaw this disaster. I had written this piece in the aftermath of the Aurora massacre, knowing all too well that there were other horrors on the horizon.  Of Course!  Conditions are ripe.  And there seems to be even a copycat aspect to killing kids.  More will come.  No doubt.  The conditions are still ripe.  Change, if we have the will to make it happen, will take time.  While we grieve and are overwhelmed by the inhumanity of this act, thousands are dying in other lands by the murdering leaders and regimes that are supposed to protect and honor them.  Murder is in the air! Then, there is the humane and communitarian effort on the Sandy damaged east coast.  It exemplifies our other capacities.  We do rise to the need for mercy, community effort, assisting each other.

Editorials & Actions

In Praise of the American People

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | November 13, 2012

In Praise of the American People  by Rabbi Michael Lerner

Every time right-wing forces in ascendency manage to grab hold of Congress or the presidency, liberal and progressive commentators, editorialists and blogs are filled with analyses blaming the outcome on the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, or stupidity of “ordinary Americans.” They are usually wrong, and these analyses usually provide grist for the right-wing media mill’s insistence that the Left is irredeemably elitist. Indeed, in my own research on the psychodynamics of American politics, I found that it was these kinds of put-down statements, which are widely noticed across all segments of the society, play an important role in convincing many Americans that the liberal and progressive world may want their vote, but nevertheless have contempt for them. Those feelings are intensified when people encounter the strong left-wing religio-phobia that takes for granted that people who believe in God are intellectually stunted, morally distorted, or psychologically seeking a substitute father-figure or otherwise drowned in some form of pathology that hopefully will be cured when they spend more time hanging out with the supposedly more enlightened and intellectually sophisticated liberals and progressives. It’s amazing when a majority of Americans can overcome the resentements generated by this kind of elitism and unite with these same lefties to vote for policies and politicians who are implicitly challenging the current distribution of wealth and power.

Editorials & Actions

Liberals and Progressives Happy but Not Elated About Obama’s Re-Election

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | November 13, 2012

Liberals and Progressives Happy but Not Elated About Obama’s Re-Election
Sunday, 11 November 2012 07:17By Rabbi Michael Lerner,

President Barack Obama amidst confetti after giving his victory speech during his election night event at the McCormick Place Lakeside Center in Chicago, following Election Day, early Wednesday morning, November 7. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)The moderate beat the reactionary. Two cheers! Americans stood up for their values. Three cheers!

Editorials & Actions

Obama Must Use Military to Ensure a Free and Fair Election: An Op-Ed by Jonathan Klate

By Rabbi Michael Lerner | November 4, 2012

Editor’s note: if you agree with this note, please call your local and national media and ask them to report on this appeal to Obama. They can speak to Tikkun staff at 510-644-1200. Obama Must Use Military to Ensure a Free and Fair Election
by Jonathan Klate

Witnessing this presidential election drama is like a nightmare in which a catastrophic multi-car collision on a fog shrouded, rain-slicked interstate is developing in slow motion.  You see it from above, the helicopter view.  The cars begin to skid and spin slowly out of control, hurtling towards each other, the inevitable crunches of steel and cascades of splintered glass anticipated.  You are powerless to stop it.  And, what is worse, in the surreal dreamscape, you are also a passenger in one of the cars. Newly enacted rules regarding who may vote, when they may register, what sort of never before required ID will be required and who faces discouraging obstacles in obtaining it, how underserved will be certain voting precincts resulting in lines and waits so long as to effectively disenfranchise many hoping to vote, and challenges to citizens rights by vigilante mobs are widely forecast to compromise and potentially cast doubt upon the outcome of this election. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, featuring some of the most prestigious scholars in the field of voting rights, reports that the breakdown of those without government issued photo ID includes 6 million seniors, 5.5 million African Americans, 8.1 million Hispanics, 4.5 million eighteen- to twenty-four-year olds, and 15 percent of voters with household income under $35,000 a year.